Wesley J. Smith

The usual suspects have filed a lawsuit to interpret Connecticut’s anti assisted suicide law as permitting “aid in dying.” Under this theory, terminally ill patients can’t commit suicide because they would want to live, but for their disease. So, when a doctor prescribes . . . . Continue Reading »

The assisted suicide movement doesn’t give a fig about consistency. If people attack legalized suicide, they pound the podium and assert that we must respect state’s rights.  But when states refuse to legalize assisted suicide—as in Montana—they file lawsuits hoping an . . . . Continue Reading »

A few weeks ago, as I have mentioned previously, I debated bioethicist and scientist Gregor Stock about designer babies.  An audience member has written a summary of that clash that pretty accurately summarizes our respective positions.  From the article in the CBC Newsletter by Evan Rosa . . . . Continue Reading »

You can’t make some things up.  All Nippon Airlines is asking passengers to use the facilities before boarding.  Why?  Using the toilet will lighten the passenger, hence lightening their collective weight, meaning—are you ready for it?—fewer carbon emissions!  . . . . Continue Reading »

This is what will happen if we permit government cost/benefit boards to decide on what treatments—and patients—are worth spending money on—and which aren’t.  The Province of Ontario, Canada, has limited life extending treatment for terminal colon cancer patients to save . . . . Continue Reading »

The latest edition of my podcast is up and ready for your listening (I hope) enjoyment.  In this edition, I discuss the issue of “animal standing” to bring lawsuits, and the now confirmed regulations “czar,” Cass Sunstein’s, support for the proposal.If we want to . . . . Continue Reading »

The Brave New World crowd and the media continually pretend that the only objections to scientific projects such as human cloning are religiously based.  The latest example is in a profile of the new head of the NIH, Francis Collins, an evangelical Christian, in the New York Times.  From . . . . Continue Reading »

The drive to “stop” global warming—relabeled climate change—does not depend on facts on the ground.  Yes, the earth has warmed in the last one hundred years and there is evidence that some or all of it may be due to human activities.  But it is by no means a sure . . . . Continue Reading »

I never know what entry will attract the most attention, or why the number of readers ebbs and flows.  Just before the switch to First Things, I had hit the 50,000 visits a month mark, from about 42,000 visitors.  Then, numbers fell, as they usually do in the summer.  They have begun . . . . Continue Reading »

I have a piece up on CNS News.Com on the renewed drive to dismantle the dead donor rule that requires vital organ donors to be dead before procurement. From my column:Oh-oh: Here they come. For years, organ transplant ethicists and some in the bioethics community have agitated to increase the supply . . . . Continue Reading »